By the time you read this, I will be traipsing around Morocco. Who won’t be along? My children.

That means I get to do whatever I want, whenever I want, without having anyone gripe at me that they’re hungry, thirsty, tired or bored.

I also won’t forget my underwear.

When I adopted my kids 16 years ago, I decided to just keep on traveling, because it’s my hobby and my disease.

When I was heading off to some exotic place, people would always ask me, “Are you bringing the kids?” Well, as a single mom, the answer was always “yes,” partly because I had no alternative and also because I waited 46 years to get those kids, I wasn’t leaving them behind.

This led to many exciting adventures in all sorts of places like Africa, Thailand and Egypt. But, believe me, being on watch duty for two little kids 24 hours a day isn’t all its cracked up to be. Sometimes you get tired. And sometimes you just want to string them up by their thumbs.

And, sometimes, you goof. I spent so much time making sure the kids were properly packed for Thailand that I forgot to put something crucial in my own suitcase: My underwear.

Trust me when I say it is impossible to buy plus size underwear in Bangkok. I tried. Nowadays, I always pack my undies first, then add everything else later.

Now that my kids are young adults, I still enjoy traveling with them, though I no longer enjoy paying all the bills.

Here’s a tip: Make them cook. When I took four teenagers to Costa Rica by myself and lived to tell the tale, it was partly because I rented a big cabana and assigned all of them kitchen detail. I drew up a chart for breakfast, lunch and dinner for every day, and wrote in a name for each meal.

That person was in charge of preparing the meal. I would give them grocery money and let them walk down the hill to the local market, while I relaxed with a book. We didn’t win any James Beard awards with the cuisine, but the kids got a learning experience, and I didn’t do all the work.

Nowadays, my kids still live at home but they both have full-time jobs. This means I don’t cook meals for them, though sometimes I’d like to. I can take off for Morocco and leave them at home to feed and walk the dogs, hoping they don’t burn anything down while I’m gone.

This means I don’t have to be drill sergeant waking anyone up for breakfast. I don’t have to pay for any zip lines. I can spend all day long staring at Moroccan architecture if I want, without anyone rolling their eyes and demanding it’s time to move on. I am traveling with two friends, but I don’t think either one of them is going to want to zip line. I’m somewhat doubtful they even have zip lines in Morocco.

Marla Jo Fisher was a workaholic hard news reporter before she adopted two children from foster care at age 46, picked up a scruffy dog along the way and somehow managed to keep them all alive, at least so far. She now writes the Frumpy Middle-Age Mom humor column that appears in the Orange County Register weekly. Due to her status as the cheapest person alive, she also writes about deals and bargains for the Register, including her Cheapo Travel column which also runs in newspapers around the country. When she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's usually traveling somewhere cheaply and writing about it.